[Quote No.54723] Need Area: Mind > Learn "[Be skeptical. Skepticism is helpful in the long-term:] Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - BuddhaAuthor's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.54765] Need Area: Mind > Learn "[In the brain are neurons.] Each neuron has three parts: the dendrites, the cell body, and the axon. The dendrites are treelike branches that receive input from other neurons. The dendrites lead into the cell body, which sustains the life of the cell and contains its DNA. Finally, the axon is a living cable of varying lengths (from microscopic ones in the brain to others that run down to the legs and can be three feet long). Axons are often compared to wires because they carry electrical impulses at very high speeds (from 2 to 200 miles per hour) toward the dendrites of neighboring neurons. A neuron can receive two kinds of signals: ones that excite it (excitatory signals) and ones that inhibit it (inhibitory signals). When a neuron receives enough excitatory signals, it will fire off its own signal. When it receives enough inhibitory signals, it becomes less likely to fire.
Axons don't quite touch the neighboring dendrites. They are separated by a microscopic space called a synapse. Once an electrical signal gets to the end of the axon, it triggers the release of a chemical messenger, called a neurotransmitter, into the synapse. The chemical messenger floats over to the dendrite of the adjacent neuron, exciting or inhibiting it. When we say that neurons 'rewire' themselves, we mean that alterations occur at the synapse, strengthening and increasing, or weakening and decreasing, the number of connections between the neurons.
One of the core laws of neuroplasticity is that neurons that fire together wire together, meaning that repeated mental experience leads to structural changes in the brain neurons that process that experience, making the synaptic connections between those neurons stronger. In practical terms, when a person learns something new, different groups of neurons get wired together. As a child learns the alphabet, the visual shape of the letter A is connected with the sound 'ay.' Each time the child looks at the letter and repeats the sound, the neurons involved 'fire together' at the same time, and then 'wire together'; the synaptic connections between them are strengthened. Whenever any activity that links neurons is repeated, those neurons fire faster, stronger, sharper signals together, and the circuit gets more efficient and better at helping to perform the skill.
The converse is also true. When a person stops performing an activity for an extended period, those connections are weakened, and over time many are lost. This is an example of a more general principle of plasticity: that it is a use-it-or-lose-it phenomenon. Thousands of experiments have now demonstrated this fact. Often the neurons that were involved in the skill will be taken over and used for other mental tasks that are now being performed more regularly. Sometimes one can manipulate the use-it-or-lose-it principle to undo brain connections that are not helpful, because neurons that fire apart wire apart. Suppose a person has formed a bad habit of eating whenever he is emotionally upset, associating the pleasure of food with the dulling of emotional pain; breaking the habit will require learning to disassociate the two. He might have to actively forbid himself from going to the kitchen when he is emotionally upset, until he finds a better way to handle his emotions. ...
" - Dr. Norman Doidge'The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity', 2015.Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.54767] Need Area: Mind > Learn "[Skepticism is important in the search for 'Truth'. Why? ...:] In science, confirmation bias is always the unseen enemy. Having a dog in the fight means you may bend the rules to favor it, whether deliberately or simply because we’re wired to ignore inconvenient truths. In fact, the entire scientific method can be seen as a series of attempts to drive out bias: [For example] The double-blind controlled trial exists because both patients and doctors tend to see what they want to see - improvement." - Maia Szalavitz[https://medium.com/matter/the-boy-whose-brain-could-unlock-autism-70c3d64ff221 ]Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.54922] Need Area: Mind > Learn "[The value and importance of skepticism, doubt and proof:] Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - BuddhaAuthor's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image